Study Tips for Students

Actual advice from your fellow classmates how to do well:

"Keep up with ALEKS from the beginning and review for the knowledge checks. If you do well on the easier ones in the beginning your pie average will be higher and you'll keep up with the prerequisite for the next objectives. "

"My advice is to stay on top of aleks even when you are ahead on your assignments you should still go back and review topics you have already done for your knowledge checks. After every knowledge check go back as soon as you can to make up for the topics you have lost, this will help you improve your pie score. Yes you will have a love hate relationship with aleks, but just make sure you double check your answers for aleks because it is very specific. "

"Most of what will be done will be covered through an online resource called Aleks. The KEY to staying successful is to always do the objectives, and put in 15-20 hours a week trying to truly *learn* the topics. I know sometimes it may seem easy to "push" this back, or "there is always next week to learn this", but when the final comes around that will only taunt you. Googling is not a way to do well. Yes, short term that will get you the grade, but ultimately google will become fruitless when it comes to practice exams and the final. Take this course seriously and do not put it on the back burner. If I were to say one thing: please go to class, actually care and put forth effort, and try your best. With a subject as tricky as this it can be easy to get behind since it is online. Do not underestimate. Goodluck."

"STUDY ALL THE TIME!!! You have to study all the time for this course, study after class and study on the days that you don't have class. This course is so hard but It's not supposed to be easy. Make lots of notes and write everything down. The Labs are fun but make sure you have your pre-lab complete before lab. Good luck with Aleks."

"Do not get discouraged if you have to relearn some of the topics on Aleks, it is prepping you to know the subject better for the test"

"My advise would be to take Aleks very seriously as well as the knowledge checks to help improve your grade drastically and prepare for the final exam. You need to complete homework on time and always be prepared for lab and class to succeed. "

"Do the objectives before they are do. Write the hard problems down. Keep up with the pie. Don't wait till last second to start everything, it's really hard to finish in time."

"My advice would be to stay on top of the Aleks assignments. Although they may seem tedious and excessive, they are the best way to prepare for the final. Try doing problems without the help of outside sources and keep practice. I personally had a difficult time keeping up with Aleks and fell behind which impacted my ability to understand material. You have to be dedicated to doing everything you can to pass this course."

"Stay ahead of ALEKS and do all homework assignments as soon as possible so you don’t fall behind. The best possible advice I could give though is to NEVER CHEAT THE ASSIGNMENTS. ALEKS forces you to actually learn the material so if you learn it the first time it makes your life through this course a whole lot easier. "

"My advice is don't knock ALEKS till you try it. At first it was really tough and seemed irrational to me, but as I went further on in the course and the knowledge checks we took made me repeat what I didn't have a basic understanding for, it actually was enjoyable and something that was interesting. My main advice, is to use your in class time wisely to work on your ALEKS progress and take advantage of your peers and work together to help figure your objectives out. And if a group of you can't seem to figure anything out, don't hesitate to ask the professor. I'd say working together with others in class is the best advice I could give because it lessens the load you have to do at home and honestly whatever I worked on with a partner I seemed to have a much greater understanding of. I'd say one of the best things is to keep on top of the objectives that are due each period and it will overall help you everywhere else in the course, from the exam to the knowledge checks to the pie progress to your grade which is obviously the most important objective. It may seem like a pain at first, but ALEKS is something that grows on you and turns out to be very effective with just a little bit of effort put in towards it. And a lot of effort will go even further in big ways. That's about the best advice I could give to anyone and I'm sure other classmates would agree. "

"I would tell them to make sure they study hard! Make sure you’re comfortable with the topic you completed, and not just rushing to get your homework done because it will always come back to you if you don’t understand it! I would make sure I finished my homework ahead of time so I have extra time to go back to those few topics I need to repeat!"

"do not learn for short term memory"

"The alek's program is very time consuming, it personally helped me learn a lot more than i would have in a regular classroom and at my own time."